3 CEO, Kevin Russell, said that they will change perception of their network as weak and by the end of 2010 have a ‘shit hot’ network with 98% outdoor coverage in UK.

Kevin Russell claimed 13,000 masts will cover 98% of UK by October while 10,000 masts currently cover 92% with 1,000 in London within the M25. However, 3 plan to increase coverage outside of London and have 12,855 sites planned that will support 7.6mbps HSPDA internet.

Orange did claim they had the greatest coverage of 93% last year but Kevin Russell explained that 3′s data figures show ‘real data with 500kbps data speed at the edge’.

Kevin Russell went onto say:
“The perception in the marketplace today is that 3 has a weak network – and it was deserved – our early handsets didn’t work very well. How to change this legacy perception? Have a good network.”

However, 3 still possess 37% of the mobile broadband market and 1.4 million customers use their dongles to connect to mobile broadband.

But Russell also explained their mobile phone strategies:
“We want 3.5 to four million handset users by the end of 2010.”

“I think Android is important. We’ve launched Spotify [on Android handset HTC Hero] softly, but you’ll see more from us, with a bigger push in the next couple months as more Spotify-enabled handsets become available.”

Russell didn’t comment either way on hosting big brand phones such as iPhone but mentioned they preferred to please the mass market on deals such as £15 contracts.

by Richard Armitage